15 
appearance. Her wings, when compared with those of 
the worker or drone, are wider, stouter, and shorter, in. 
proportion to the length of her body. She is seldom 
on the wiug, and is seldom seen except at the time ot 
swarming, and when she comes forth in the open air to 
be impregnated by the males. She laysall the eggs from 
which the increase of the colony proceeds, lhe num- 
ber of eggs which she deposits in the cells during a sin- 
gle season is truly astonishing, amounting to hundreds 
and even to thousands in a single day, as may be witness- 
ed by those who use observatory hives. 
Whenever she is taken away or lost, there is no tur- 
ther increase of the colony, and gradually, as daily loss- 
es occur, the colony becomes extinct. Many colonics 
are lost annually from this cause alone. If, however, 
she is lost during the breeding season, when there are 
newly laid worker-eggs in the hive, the loss is repaired 
by the production of another Queen. lhe usual pro- 
cess is to destroy several worker-cells around a worker- 
egg, and construct in their stead a queen cell. L have 
known queen-cells to be partially constructed in an ob 
servatory hive during a single night, after I have taken 
the Queen from the hive. After the cell is constructed 
or partially constructed, the same course is pursued as 
if a queen-egg had been originally deposited in a queen- 
cell, and in sixteen days another Queen is produed and 
takes the place of the one which is lost. . 
This result is secured because the worker is ot the 
same sex as the Queen, and all that is wanting to render 
it a propagating female is a proper development. 
The workers are so called because they perform all 
the labor of the colony. They seem to have no other 
propensity excep* to labor in various ways and to ac- 
cumulate stores for the subsistence of the family, and 
such is their propensity in this direction that, they ol- 
ten accumulate much more than is needful lor their 
own supplies, and arc able, and, I doubt not, are willing 
to furnish a liberal quantum of honey to their keeper 
to defray their necessary expenses, such as house-rent 
and the time which is bestowed upon them, lhey uni- 
